In an interview last year in the dingy Brazilian port town of Santos, Neymar Sr. described his role as father and manager to Brazil's 22-year-old soccer phenom Neymar Jr. this way: shielding his gifted child from the pressures of carrying a nation's hopes on his shoulders.

With the World Cup now just days away—the Brazil-Croatia opener is here on Thursday—it is easy to see why.

For Brazil's young and relatively inexperienced Seleção national team, managing pressure will be a key to success. Oddsmakers say Brazil is the tournament favorite on the strength of home-field advantage. But home-field advantage in Brazil also means enormous expectations. The Seleção is the only team in this World Cup for which anything but total victory will be considered utter defeat.

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The nation is haunted by Uruguay's 2-1 upset victory over Brazil in Rio de Janeiro's Maracanã stadium back in 1950, the last time Brazil hosted the Cup. In this soccer-crazed nation, the Maracanazo loss still weighs on Brazil the way the death of a president might hang over other nations.

When former President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva brought the Cup back to Brazil, an unstated policy goal was to win it at home and expunge the Maracanazo once and for all.

"We're going to not only hold the World Cup, but the best World Cup, without the fiasco of the final result of the '50 Cup. Without the fiasco," da Silva promised leaders of host cities in 2010.

Brazilian bank
Itaú Unibanco
has developed a computer model to gauge which teams will advance in the World Cup. Its economists include "weight of the jersey"—the depth of each country's soccer tradition—as a positive variable. Teams with the deeper traditions are more motivated to win, the theory goes.

But the weight of Brazil's jersey is daunting.

Brazil has won the World Cup five times—although the last of those was in 2002. Brazil also has scored more goals and won more games than any other team in the 84-year history of the tournament. It is home to Pelé, arguably the best to have ever played; the game of soccer figures prominently in the South American country's national identity.

If that weren't enough pressure, this World Cup has taken on an extra dimension as a social and political flash point in Brazil since last year, when a million Brazilians took to the streets to protest overspending to build Cup stadiums while hospitals and schools go without.

Now, add the ghost of the Maracanazo.

Much of the pressure falls on Neymar, the rail-thin 22-year-old attacker charged with exorcising those demons and carrying forth Brazil's soccer tradition. A lithe, speedy goal scorer, he is widely viewed as one of the greatest natural talents on the field today. But he is still unproven. He stepped up from Pelé's old team Santos in the Brazilian leagues to heavy-hitting FC Barcelona only last year. This will be his World Cup debut.

All the same, expectations are sky-high. In 2011, Brazilian news magazine Veja put Neymar on its cover with a crown on his head under the caption "Finally a star in the lineage of Pelé." He was 19 at the time.

Even Pelé, a three-time Cup winner and arguably the best ever to have played the game, has said the weight on Neymar to erase the stigma of the Maracanazo is unprecedented. "It will be a big pressure. It will be our revenge. The idea is to wipe away that memory, hopefully this year," Pelé said at a news conference in Paris in March.

When Pelé took the field in his World Cup debut in 1958, he was even younger at 17. But that team had older major stars to share the load.

The Brazil team around Neymar, meanwhile, is young and has relatively little World Cup experience. Among the standouts are Dani Alves, the 31-year-old Barcelona defender, David Luiz, the 27-year-old Chelsea defender, and Hulk, the 27-year-old Zenit Saint Petersburg winger. The team will look for experience from players such as 31-year old Toronto FC goalkeeper Julio Cesar, Brazil's primary keeper in the 2010 Cup.

Making sure the pressure doesn't get to the Seleção is Felipão, or Big Phil, the team's coach. Felipão, who also coached Brazil's 2002 World Cup champions, may be perfect for the job. He has made a name as a master of player psychology. His specialty is inspiring great performances by creating an upbeat "family" environment in the locker room, and protecting it by growling at reporters or anyone else who might interfere with his familia.

But even Big Phil may need backup this time around. To do it, he has hired a psychologist to counsel the team. According to the Folha de S. Paulo newspaper, Felipão and the psychologist have banned the word "Maracanazo."

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